Clavis: An open and versatile identification key format.

The skills and knowledge needed to recognize and classify taxa are becoming increasingly scarce in the scientific community. At the same time, it is clear that these skills are strongly needed in biodiversity monitoring for management and conservation, especially when carried out by citizen scientists. Formalizing the required knowledge in the form of digital identification keys is one way of making such knowledge more available for professional and amateur observers of biodiversity. In this paper we describe Clavis, an open and versatile data format for capturing the knowledge required for taxon identification through digital keys, allowing for a level of detail beyond that of any current key format. We present the format independently from any particular implementation, as our aim is for Clavis to serve as a basis for interoperable tools and interfaces serving different needs and actors.

Phylogeny of the tribe Athetini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data.

The Athetini are the largest and taxonomically most challenging tribe in the subfamily Aleocharinae. We present the first molecular phylogeny of Athetini. Nucleotide sequences were obtained from three genome regions for 58 athetine and 23 non-athetine species. The sequenced genes are cytochrome oxidase subunits 1 and 2 (2030bp), tRNA-Leucine 1 and 2 (154bp), 16S (628bp, partial sequence), NADH dehydrogenase subunit 1 (54bp, partial sequence), and the nuclear 18S gene (999bp, partial sequence). The Athetini were recovered as paraphyletic with respect to Lomechusini and Ecitocharini. Lomechusini were recovered as polyphyletic, with Myrmedonota grouping separately from Pella and Drusilla. The basal topology of Athetini remained largely unresolved but many apical clades were well supported, e.g. Geostiba+Earota, Pontomalota+Tarphiota, Mocyta+Atheta (Oxypodera)+Atheta (Mycetota), Liogluta+Atheta (Thinobaena)+Atheta (Oreostiba), and Lyprocorrhe+Atheta (Datomicra). The monophyly of Atheta was refuted, as several species of Atheta formed well supported clades with members of other genera. Additionally, the following groups were rejected: Strigotina (=Acrotonina) and Dimetrotina sensu Newton et al. (2000), Acrotona sensu Brundin (1952), Liogluta series (Yosii and Sawada, 1976), Atheta (Dimetrota) and Atheta (Alaobia) sensu Smetana (2004). New tribal placements are proposed for four genera: Halobrecta is removed from Athetini and provisionally placed in Oxypodini; Thendelecrotona is removed from Athetini and treated as Aleocharinae incertae sedis; Meronera and Thamiaraea are included in the Athetini.

Molecular phylogeny of the Athetini-Lomechusini-Ecitocharini clade of aleocharine rove beetles (Insecta).

Elven, E., Bachmann, L. & Gusarov V. I. (2012) Molecular phylogeny of the Athetini-Lomechusini-Ecitocharini clade of aleocharine rove beetles (Insecta). -Zoologica Scripta, 41, 617-636.It has previously been shown that the Aleocharinae tribes Athetini and Lomechusini form a well-supported clade, which also includes the small Neotropical tribe Ecitocharini. However, neither Athetini nor Lomechusini were recovered as monophyletic. In this study, we addressed the basal phylogenetic relationships among the three tribes using sequence data from (i) a mitochondrial fragment covering the COI, Leu2 and COII genes; (ii) a mitochondrial fragment covering part of the 16S gene, the Leu1 gene and part of the NADH 1 gene; and (iii) a part of the nuclear 18S gene, for 68 Athetini, 33 Lomechusini and 2 Ecitocharini species, plus representatives from 10 other tribes. The athetine subtribe Geostibina was recovered as sister group to the 'true Lomechusini', which included the type genus Lomechusa. The two clades formed a sister group to the main Athetini clade, which also included Ecitocharini and the 'false Lomechusini', a group of New World genera normally placed in Lomechusini. The following changes in classification are proposed: (i) Geostibina Seevers, 1978 is raised to tribal rank, and 13 Athetini genera are placed in Geostibini; (ii) Ecitodonia Seevers, 1965; Ecitopora Wasmann, 1887, and Tetradonia Wasmann, 1894 are moved from Lomechusini to Athetini; (iii) Ecitocharini Seevers, 1965 is placed in synonymy with Athetini; (iv) Discerota Mulsant & Rey, 1874 is tentatively included in Oxypodini; (v) Actocharina Bernhauer, 1907 is placed in synonymy with Hydrosmecta Thomson, 1858.